


Outside In/Inside Out

by 221b_hound



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: A lot of kissing, Anal Sex, BAMF John, Kissing, M/M, Men going at it, Mycroft is a bit of a bastard, Post Reichenbach, Reunions, clingy Sherlock, for Altinmerrick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-17
Updated: 2013-05-29
Packaged: 2017-12-12 03:02:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/806412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock Holmes always saw the world in a godlike fashion – not a sparrow falls, but he sees it. Of course, if it doesn’t provide him with relevant data, he’ll erase the knowledge again once deemed superfluous.  John Watson sees too, but he sees the other way around. He sees from the inside out.  But when disaster falls, they switch ways of viewing. </p><p>And when Sherlock returns from his war: how do they see each other then?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AtlinMerrick](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AtlinMerrick/gifts).



> Inspired by Atlinmerrick's The Look

Sherlock Holmes always saw the world in a godlike fashion – not a sparrow falls, but he sees it. Of course, if it doesn’t provide him with relevant data, he’ll erase the knowledge again once deemed superfluous. But in the moment of that sparrow falling, he sees and observes it: the weather on the day and the sky from which it fell, its trajectory and the pattern of its feathers and its wings, its age and gender and sub-species, its individual markers and flaws.

That’s how Sherlock Holmes sees the world, from the outside in – from the very large thence down to the very small – all in vivid, almost overwhelming detail. That’s his curse. His genius is to be able to sink into and filter all that data, and to emerge from it with some vital narrative extracted from the flood that would surely make another person mad.

It took him a long time to refine his gift – going from that grand, wide world and down into the very fine particulars, unfolding a true story made of facts and inferences – to go from that eagle-eye view, to see the truth of the person at the heart of the detail.

Well, to be accurate, still he mostly doesn’t. He does see one person though.

He sees John Watson.

Of course, the first time he saw John, he saw him in the usual way. A disturbance in the air, a movement in the environment, an interrupting voice marring his concentration. Then he saw a haircut and a tan line and a cane and a limp that wasn’t (and later also a brother that wasn’t) and so on and so forth.

But this collection of data points persisted. It handed him a phone; moved with contained confidence, like some kind of predator in disguise. Handed him complements, too, rare and genuine. This collection of facts, this John Watson, persisted in being interesting after the initial narrative was uncovered, and persisted in demonstrating there was a narrative yet to come that Sherlock couldn’t quite deduce.

In due course – a matter of hours, a day at the most – Sherlock Holmes saw the John-shaped space in the middle of the world, and then he did everything he could (even despite himself sometimes) to keep that shape close by.

John Watson sees too, but he sees the other way around. He sees from the inside out.

He sees the person first. It’s what he’s trained to do. Not just the symptoms, the signs of wellness or illness that a person carries: he sees the whole of them, their physical body in relation to their emotional state, their lifestyle, their environment, their personality. Good medicine is a holistic practice, and he has spent twenty years cultivating that whole-person view, looking for connections and disconnects, looking for _who_ someone is, not just what they do or the condition they present.

John Watson stepped into that lab at St Bart’s and saw so many contradictory details. That too-young face ( _he looks like he’s twelve_ ) but that too-old knowledge of human flaws. The slenderness that looked frail but was obviously (to his doctor’s eyes, unmistakeably) strong. The relentless logic wrapped like a cloak around all that _passion_. Within a day, John Watson saw the arrogance and brilliance layered over and through and around the fragility and the vulnerability of this man of contradictions.

In due course, John saw the world in coronas flaring off that hard, bright centre. He saw how Sherlock interacted with the world, and then naturally he saw how the world interacted with Sherlock – and how much the world got it right, and how very much it got him so, so wrong.

John saw how his own perception of the world changed in proximity to that astonishing focal point. In no time at all, John Watson’s whole world became tinted with _Sherlock_ , whether he willed it or no.

Sherlock has been known to deduce John's specific movements around the flat because of lingering scents of the liniment John uses sometimes on his shoulder; the lotion he uses on his hands, the scent of gun oil sometimes, the whiff of shampoo or soap, of laundry detergent and freshly ironed clothes, John’s aftershaves (his regular brand and the more expensive one he uses when he’s trying to impress a date) and it's like a ghost of John in the air.

Sherlock could walk around the flat, eyes closed, hours after John has left the house, to trace John’s invisible steps. He did it once, just to see if he could. And he could. Of course.

Sherlock once made the mistake of telling John that he could track John's peculiar scent. John took exception to that 'peculiar', but it only meant ‘distinctive’. John has a _distinctive_ olfactory presence.

Sherlock does too, and John was cross that time, about _peculiar_ , partly because he was taken aback that Sherlock had noticed it, as much as he noticed Sherlock's own peculiar… everything. His scent and shape and presence and incandescent light.

So much in the world reminds John of Sherlock. The smell of alleyways at twilight and of the Thames at low tide. The mulch of old leaves in older gardens. Moth balls, from that time they crouched in a cupboard for three hours, waiting for the killer to leave. Chlorine and winter rain and paint and rosin and summer sun on roof tiles and burning toast and gunpowder and tea and blood and a certain shampoo and a fire in the hearth and so much and all and everything and it’s all Sherlock to him, in some way or another. This does not even include all the sounds, let alone the things he sees, that all contain an echo of that brilliant, outrageous, mad, maddening, glorious, amazing, incredible man who has somehow stained all of creation with quintessential _Sherlock_.

When disaster finally overtakes them, these ways of seeing are already their habit. John sees the world in reference to its Sherlock-shaped centre. Sherlock sees the wide world and looks for the John-shape – that fascinating, unfinished narrative – at its heart.

James Moriarty turns it all upside down and inside out. James Moriarty drives Sherlock into mock-death, away into the wide, harsh world to spend years (and forever and more) trying to get back to the John-shape at its heart. Moriarty drives the Sherlock-shape out of John’s world, leaving it hollow, so that he has to look out and out and out to see Sherlock at all.

Two years, one month and twelve days after The Fall, John comes home and he knows, immediately, that the world has changed again. _Yet again._ He’s been looking for signs of his friend in the wide world for all this time, and now, as he steps in off the street, he _knows_ without knowing how he knows. There is a disturbance in the dust, in the pattern on the rug, in the sound of the creaking floorboards, in the smell in the hallway and a mark on the stairs. John leaves the shopping bags at the foot of the seventeen steps and follows the knowledge upwards.

John knows Sherlock is alive. He’s known that the dead, gone, ghost of Sherlock became that through a magic trick, just like Sherlock had told him. He saw the rubber ball trick on some American TV show repeat, after months of grieving, and he remembered the rubber ball that Sherlock had in his hand at St Bart’s, and then a cascade of other facts and notions flowed down and in from the outside. Data points and speculation. The impossible made possible.

John had confronted Mycroft with it, and Mycroft hadn’t confirmed but failed to deny. Because John knew people, he read the truth in Mycroft that Mycroft wouldn’t say. Even now, he understands that silence too. John can extrapolate what has been at stake, because he was looking then at the whole world, and not at what was absent at its heart.

So he _knows_. When John steps into the living room at Baker Street to see the man curled in his old chair, he knows he’s not seeing a ghost.

John continues to look from the outside in.

He sees the furniture that is moved slightly out of alignment, and the swirl of dust motes as though a tall body has only recently passed through them. He sees the figure, of course, and the threadbare suit. He smells the old, sour sweat-smell of it, and the many repairs, and the bloodstains not quite removed from one sleeve.

Outside in. He sees the marks on the suit, and those on the man. The scars in his skin and the other kind in his eyes. John sees the returned soldier, who has fought and won a war, perhaps, but lost other things. He recognises that look because he used to wear it.

In that outside-in look, John sees two years, one month and twelve days, and what they contained, and what they cost. Because he knows war, John knows none of the exact details but almost everything he needs to know about the man in that chair.

And then he is seeing all the way down to the Sherlock shape. The lines of stress and exhaustion and fear and hope around his eyes and mouth.

He sees Sherlock. Home and mostly whole. 

He sees Sherlock. He _sees_ him.

While John is busy, seeing from the outside in, Sherlock sits in his old chair and sees John. Only John. From the inside, stuck there, not yet able to see out.

Sherlock sees those blue eyes, intense and assessing.  He can see the steady pulse in John’s throat and he doesn’t know if means shock or anger or acceptance or something else. He sees those still hands and the tiny lift of that expressive mouth in what might be the start of a smile. He doesn’t know yet. It is driving him mad that he _doesn’t know_.

Until now, Sherlock hasn’t really seen Baker Street. It didn’t look right. It didn’t feel right. Not like home. But now he’s seeing inside-out, and now he can see the concentric rings, like those around a stone dropping into water, expanding beyond John's eyes and mouth, to his clothes, to the room and he sees a world shaped around that bright, bright centre. Everything around them is tinted with _John_.

Then his gaze falls in again. There is too much world, and he’s seen too much of it, and he wants to stay here. Inside. Here. Beside the heart for whom, if he is honest, he did it all.

Sherlock doesn’t know what’s going to happen next. It’s a novel sensation, and one he normally loves, it’s so rare, but now he doesn’t like it. He can’t imagine what follows. For two years, one month and twelve days he has not allowed himself to imagine it. It has been forever, and no time at all, and worlds have been formed and destroyed and are forming anew even now and _he doesn’t know, he doesn’t know, he doesn’t…_

And John takes a step towards him. A second. A third, and his hands reach out to cradle Sherlock’s head – not the tender gesture of holding his jaw, but hands around his skull, his ears, like Sherlock once did at a railyard, imploring John to remember something that John had already photographed, but it had been an excuse to touch, and…

John holds Sherlock’s head in his sturdy hands and kisses Sherlock’s forehead – a benediction and an absolution and a welcome – and John is saying “I know you did what you thought you had to do, but don't you ever leave me behind again.”

Sherlock doesn’t mean to, he doesn’t even know he has done it until it’s done, and he has risen, lurched to his feet, buried his face in John’s neck, inhaling. Nodding agreement and inhaling that peculiar, beloved scent. Seeing with his eyes closed, from the inside, oh, the very _core_ , out.

For two years, one month and twelve days, the ghost of the very centre of his world has haunted Sherlock. The smell of gun oil was almost enough to reduce him to tears some days. The time he pulled all the muscles in his back escaping assassins, he used the liniment for a week longer than necessary because it was a trace memory of the essence of home; before he reluctantly gave it up so he could focus on getting back to the _reality_ of it.

With his face pressed into John's neck, breathing him in, that kiss of benediction still hot in the centre of his forehead, Sherlock has no way and no wish to say _no_ when John's arms wrap around him and press him close.

He has no words when he feels John's nose and mouth against his hair, or hears that never-forgotten voice saying _Shhhh, shhhh,_ and realises suddenly that the soft, keening sound he's been hearing is his own voice.

Sherlock kisses John’s neck. He can’t help it: all he can see and feel and think is _John’s eyes_ and _John’s skin_ and _John’s pulse_ and _John’s scent_ and _John_ and _John_ and **_John_** …

He kisses John's neck, because it's where his mouth is, it's where he can reach, and he can't bring himself to move even a fraction away, and he doesn't know what John will do, because the world is _tilting_.

But John kisses his hair, his temple, and his hands are gliding and rubbing and holding close and touching and it's overwhelming and it's home, it's home, it’s _John_ and it's _home_.

His own arms and hands tighten, and he tilts his face up, and John kisses his mouth, unselfconsciously, happily. They pause for breath, and Sherlock sees, up so very close, the smile on John’s mouth, and he feels his own mouth smiling back, and then their mouths are hot and gentle and demanding and joyful and it’s like it’s always been like this. It hasn’t, but maybe it has actually, and now it’ll be always and forever.

And the world implodes to a point, or maybe it explodes like a supernova, but it's certain that the world shifts on its axis, and two men are at the heart of it, a John-and-Sherlock shaped core, the world created anew around them.

The world settles into its new lines, its new light and taste sound.

And for that moment, the first of many moments to come, they see each other in exactly the same way.

The see the whole world in each other's eyes.

 


	2. Brave New World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For two years, one month and twelve days, Sherlock has been battling the darkness to return to this bright, warm centre, his John, who, Sherlock now understands, is the heart of all things. For this same stretch of interminable time, John has been staring out into the world, seeking his Sherlock, seeking this man who colours how John perceives everything. Not ten minutes home, not ten, and Sherlock’s mouth and John’s mouth are pressed together, synchronised in relief, desire, discovery. 
> 
> But the return home is not over yet. There's Mrs Hudson to see (and who sees back) and there's Mycroft, who is far from happy. And there are promises to make and keep.

For two years, one month and twelve days, Sherlock has been battling the darkness to return to this bright, warm centre, his John, who, Sherlock now understands, is the heart of all things. For this same stretch of interminable time, John has been staring out into the world, seeking his Sherlock, seeking this man who colours how John perceives everything.

Not ten minutes home, not _ten_ , and Sherlock’s mouth and John’s mouth are pressed together, synchronised in relief, desire, discovery. Every hope kept secret even from their own selves now breathing in the air they share. When one draws back, the other follows, stealing the heat back again between huffs of laughter. Lips stretched in smiles soften again to kiss and kiss and kiss.

Where once there were two separate points, one starting from the outside looking in, one looking from the centre outwards, there is now a double helix, and the only thing strange is that they find it not at all strange.

John’s phone chimes, and they ignore it. It chimes again, but John’s hands are busy roaming over Sherlock’s body, through cloth and years he is (re)acquainting himself with his own heart, his whole skin feeling the fact of that impossible man under his hands. Sherlock, in contrast, holds his hands still and firm around John’s waist and lower back, holding him in place, as though John is the one who fell away from the world and left London, and him, behind.

Another chime. John is busy now measuring the pricelessness of Sherlock’s mouth and cheeks and nose with his own, with countless delicate movements, nuzzling and breathing, oh, breathing in the reality.

On the eighth chime, John reluctantly pushes his nose against Sherlock’s brow, creating a small space between them.

“Could be the clinic. Hang on.”

“No. No.” Sherlock ends each moue of the ‘o’ on John’s temple, near the corner of his eyes, “Stay with me.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” John assures him, pulling the phone from his pocket.

The messages read, in variations: _confirm that he is with you_ _– MH_

“I escaped from the safe house,” Sherlock says, not even looking at the messages, his tone dark, irate. “I couldn’t stand it another minute.”

John’s body shifts suddenly, from pliable pleasure to alert:  battle-ready. “Are you in danger?”

“Yes. No. It should be done. Over. Mycroft should have taken Moran out before I even left.”

John’s hand drifts over Sherlock’s face, as though seeking assurance through touch as well as words. His thumb strokes the too-prominent cheekbone.

The phone in John’s hand rings, and he presses his thumb against Sherlock’s lips, a signal for silence. Then he answers the call.

“Hello, Mycroft,” says John, his voice steady and calm and a little mocking, “You haven’t pestered me in a while.” A pause and then: “You mean the brother you’ve been pretending is dead? Don’t tell me you’ve gone and _lost_ him.”

John’s voice is armoured and Sherlock ducks his head to press his lips against that thrumming pulse in John’s throat. _Not lost. Not any more. Here, here, here._ John raises his free hand and buries it in Sherlock’s hair, begins stroking it.

“Is he safe?” asks John, and then: “Some evidence would be appreciated. We both know what happened last time you had a psychopath in custody who wanted to hurt Sherlock. _You let him go_.” A dry, harsh bark of humourless laughter. “A head on a pike might just do it. I used to find a lot worse in my fridge. A lot w…” But his throat closes unexpectedly on the end of that memory and, pulling the mouthpiece askew, ear only to the phone, John presses his mouth against Sherlock’s hair, converting the sudden urge to weep into a kiss.

When he has his voice back, when Sherlock is stroking his back in long, soothing sweeps, breathing soft and warm against his neck, John speaks into the phone again.

“He’ll be safe here. Safer than with you. I don’t care. I don’t… You are not listening to me, Mycroft. I. Do. Not. Trust. You. Bring me that fucker’s head on a pike, convince me you are not saving Moran up for a rainy day, make me believe that Sherlock’s safety comes before any of your schemes and I might, just might, decide to distrust you a little less.” Another laugh. “Yes, you told me that once before. Tell me, Mycroft, have you ever considered that you're just not the trustworthy type?”

He hangs up. Pauses. Throws the phone across the room, leaving his hands free to crush Sherlock closer. He breathes in, out, carefully, regaining calm.

“I don’t care how much of you staying away was your idea,” says John, “And how much of it was his. You are done keeping secrets from me.”

Sherlock’s whole body stiffens and he draws away.

“I am not stupid, Sherlock,” says John, “I’m slower that the genius Holmes brothers, but I am not stupid. Mycroft was in on it from the start; he had to be.”

“I needed him.”

“And he needed you, to dismantle Moriarty’s web. Don’t think for a minute that I don’t know how he used you. How you let him.”

This new thing between them is momentarily fragile, or Sherlock thinks so, but his scowl is met only with compassion, which puzzles him. What he says is: “Only Mycroft had the resources I needed to eliminate the threat.”

“And with you apparently dead, only you had what it took to do the job. He used you, Sherlock. You knew what Mycroft was doing, and you let him.” Any hardness in John’s tone bleeds away, though. “I know why, though, Sherlock. I know.”

John’s open hand is stroking Sherlock’s cheek again. Sherlock pushes into the touch.

“Mycroft wanted to eliminate a threat to the nation,” John continues. Sherlock already knows these things, but John wants to make it clear that he understands; that he has understood for a long time. “He used you for his so-called higher purpose and you let him. Because you? You wanted to win, without paying the cost. And you did, you magnficent bastard. You idiot genius. We are alive, and _you’re_ alive, and you won. You did it. You won.”

John pulls Sherlock against him, and Sherlock, unresisting, folds into the embrace. That John understands how he let Mycroft manipulate events, how he allowed himself to be manipulated, in order to ensure John’s (and Lestrade’s and Mrs Hudson’s) safety – that he does not have to explain, is such a relief.

“Moriarty would have killed you,” Sherlock whispers, “You were marked, John. All of you. I tried to stop the inevitable. I tried to stay, but I couldn’t. Once Moriarty was dead, there was no other way to stop the events he'd set in motion. He would have taken you away from me."

“Instead, he took _you_ away from _me_.”

“I’m back,” Sherlock says, voice rough, “I came back.” He takes a breath, the inhale dragging against John's skin. He does not want to make promises he can't keep, and he will keep secrets from John if he must. But the very idea tightens something in his chest and makes him feel like a prisoner again. So he exhales a promise. "No more secrets, John." Sherlock has no use for them any more; not from John. Mycroft is another matter.

John’s embrace is possessive. “Mycroft tried to keep you from coming home.”

“Mycroft thought he was controlling me. He was, as usual, wrong.”

“If he tries to take you away from _here_ , I will kick his fucking bollocks inside out.”

“Assuming you can find them.” Sherlock’s voice is muffled against John’s clavicle, where he is testing the shape of that bone under the skin with his lips.

John laughs, the tension draining out of him. “Good thing I’ve got good aim.”

Sherlock kisses John’s mouth. “And demonstrable form.”

“Quite.” A kiss, a sniff, a grin. “God, that suit of yours reeks.”

Sherlock grimaces. “I showered at the safe house, but this was all I had to wear. I think Mycroft hoped I’d be too ashamed to appear in public in the thing.”

“He clearly doesn’t know you as well as he thinks he does.”

“No.” But Sherlock reluctantly stands back, self-conscious for the first time.

“Why don’t you get changed while I go back down for the groceries. Your stuff is still in your room.”

“Keeping a shrine, John?” Sherlock arches an eyebrow, more his old acid self.

“No, you pillock. I’ve just been waiting for you to come home.” And he takes Sherlock’s face in his hands and kisses him again. “I’ve been waiting all this time. I’d have come to you if I’d known where you were.”

Sherlock swallows. “I know.”

“Get changed. I’ll be right back.”

“Yes.”

If Sherlock thinks walking up to the rooftop of St Bart’s had been hard, that is nothing compared to turning away now, walking those handful of steps to his old room. He can hear John behind him, feel him near, sense his presence through its ripples in the world as he has always done. But here, now, he can’t bear walking away.

But the suit does reek, of blood and dirt and despair, and Sherlock tears the buttons off it in his haste to be rid of it. Jacket, shirt, socks, shoes, trousers, pants, all gone, bundled, thrown in a corner to be burnt, burnt to ash. Hurrying as though his life depends on it, he pulls on too-loose trousers (not bothering with pants) and a shirt and runs, he runs, he goddamned **_runs_** out of that door to the living room, only to find John standing where he left him.

“It seems,” says John, “I’m not capable of leaving you behind, even to go downstairs.”

Sherlock, whose shirt is buttoned awry, has nothing cutting or witty to say on the subject.

“It appears,” says Sherlock, “I suffer a similar affliction.”

“I’m sure it’ll get better. In due course.”

“Obviously.” Sherlock has to make an effort to not reach out and seize John in a too-tight grip.

Whether or not John perceives that effort, he is the one who reaches out, places his hand on Sherlock's shoulder, runs his hand down Sherlock's bicep. His smile is a little self-deprecating.  “I really have to get the groceries. I left them downstairs. The frozen peas will be getting soggy.”

“Mustn’t have soggy peas.”

“No.”

Smiles are quirked at each other.

“Does Mrs Hudson know you’re back?”

“No.”

“Ah. Well. I’d better…” John steps towards the door. Sherlock follows him. They pause, then Sherlock holds out his hand. John immediately takes it.

It’s almost like that night, only, of course, not.

John grins and, still holding Sherlock’s hand, turns.

“Mrs Hudson?!” he calls down the stairwell.

“John!” Mrs Hudson is in the foyer, peering up, “You left your shopping down here.”

“Mrs Hudson, you remember I told you… I said… I said what if Sherlock… what if he did something clever? Really clever.”

Mrs Hudson sees things in the world too. Not like Sherlock, and not like John, but she sees. Many years ago, when she needed help and Sherlock provided it, she saw the lost boy in that wild man and offered him love; and chastisement too, when it was needed. She saw past Sherlock’s carapace of disdain, and later she saw through John’s cloak of stoicism.

In this moment she sees John Watson as he descends the stairs, one hand tucked behind his back as though holding something, and she sees his face, and the bright, fierce light in it that has been dimmed almost to dying these last two years. She sees the shadow on the stair behind him, and she knows, she knows, _she knows._

“Oh. Oh, Sherlock. _Sherlock_.”

Her knees buckle and suddenly Sherlock's hands are holding her up, holding her close, and she hears that voice, her boy, her lost boy, and it’s true. _He’s home._

There are hugs, there are tears, laughter too, not all hers. Many and most, but not all. But she catches her breath and draws back to beam at them, and she sees the new-always change in them.

She has, of course, seen the _always_ from the start, before they knew it for themselves. She saw two men who belonged together; to each other. She sees patterns and compatibilities, and so she saw them. It wasn’t wisdom, really. It was just obvious to her, then as now.

“You look ready to drop,” she admonishes Sherlock, then John, “What do you mean by making him traipse all over the house? You take him home this minute, John Watson, and you look after him.”

Sherlock rolls his eyes. “Don’t fuss.”

“You’ve been gone two years and I thought you were dead, so don’t you dare tell me not to fuss,” she smacks his arm, not hard. “You rest, now. I’ll visit later. I need to… I need to…” Overwhelmed for a moment, she pressed her knuckles to her mouth, stifling _I need to cry._

This new Sherlock, who knew what he had lost, and what he’s regained, cradles her in a gentle hug and kisses her brow. Her laugh-sob and “I need to _bake_!” take him by surprise. “Off you go, silly boy. Get some rest. You look _terrible_.”

John laughs at how offended Sherlock looks, but he catches him by the hand, and Mrs Hudson does not in the slightest pretend not to see, nor pretend it was anything but how it should be.

“I’ll look after him, Mrs Hudson.” He scoops up the two bags of groceries in his other hand.

“You’d better.”

“I am _right here_ ,” says Sherlock, irritation in every vowel, “And I am not _incapable_.” But he does not let go of John’s hand and follows him readily enough up the stairs.

He stands close by while John stows goods into the fridge and cupboards, and arches an eyebrow when John brandishes a tin of soup at him.

“You need to eat.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“And sleep.”

“I’m not tired.”

“Sherlock, you need…”

“Stop coddling.”

“I’m not coddling. You need food, and you need to go to bed.”

“I need nothing of the kind. Unless you are asking me to come to bed with you.”

“I’m n…”

But the words seize up in John’s mouth, and he blinks, and then he grins, that smile like sunshine.

“Or maybe I am.”

It should be awkward, but it isn’t. He leans over and up, onto his toes to meet Sherlock, leaning towards him too. Their mouths connect in a soft kiss in the centre of the world.

Sherlock can detect an elevated heart beat and hear a little sigh-moan, knows that they are John’s, but his own are a counterpoint. And, oh, the feeling of that mouth, that had praised him and berated him and called his name as he fell; that had begged for a miracle. That mouth that kissed forgiveness into his skin less than an hour ago: Sherlock kisses that mouth and tastes the gift of all that was lost and is now restored, and his. Theirs. _Yes._

And John, well, he can detect heartbeats and rapid breathing and a sigh-moan himself, and he feels Sherlock’s mouth give against his, feels it open and soften and invite and give _here I am, this is me, this is yours, ours_.

They part and John’s eyes are the brightest blue, his mouth is a smile full of delight and wonder. “Please,” he says, “Please. Come to bed with me.”

Sherlock extends his hand again, and again John takes it. Again, like that night, but not, because they are running hand in hand not into loss but into a new adventure.

“We haven’t talked about this yet,” says John, his thumb caressing the back of Sherlock’s hand.

“Is there anything to talk about?”

“Not unless you have doubts.”

“None. You?”

“Not a one.”

Sherlock closes the distance between them, presses his forehead to John’s, his nose to John’s, breathes his breath against John’s lips. “Good.” Then he leads them not to his own room but up the stairs to John’s. He can almost hear the query in John’s footsteps.

“I am assuming you still have lubricant in your room,” he says, “I never used to have any in mine."

“Lube, yes, if the whole container hasn’t atrophied. The condoms would be out of date, if I still have any.”

Sherlock’s thoughts are pulling that statement apart in an instant. Why one and not the other? Ah. Masturbation, but not recently, and no partner. John has been alone.

Sherlock feels pleased about that, and is aware that he shouldn’t be, because he wouldn’t have wanted John to be lonely. But knowing that John did not seek solace elsewhere, even though they were not then… what they now are. He likes that.

“We don’t need condoms,” is what he says.

John lifts an eyebrow but waits for elaboration.

“I had a complete medical the moment I stepped foot back in England. I can report I am in perfect health.” At John’s look, he adds, “Slightly undernourished, but…”

“And me?”

Sherlock gives an annoyed sigh. “You were tested two and a half years ago after that needlestick incident at the clinic. I don’t imagine you have engaged in risky behaviour since then. It appears you have not engaged in even low risk activity.”

“You’re right. Of course.” John’s expression says ‘amazing’ instead of ‘piss off’. If anything, John is beaming at the insight.

They reach John’s room, and Sherlock immediately unbuttons his askew shirt, his trousers, is stripped naked in moments. He notes that a purple shirt of his is hooked over the head of John’s bed, not far from the pillow. Close enough to be seen, perhaps with some last lingering scent in it, but not so close that other scents will overwrite it.

John looks sheepish, then defiant, then he laughs. “It reminded me you were alive out there. That… that I hoped you were... Coming back…”

Sherlock pulls him in for a kiss, bodies close, Sherlock naked and surrendering to the way John's hands stroke and hold. Sherlock can detect the faint traces of John's hand lotion, almost scentless really, that keeps his hands gentle for his patients. Those strong hands are soft on him, tender and soothing over the years of pain and endurance. The scent alone could send Sherlock to his knees in gratitude, but the firm-soft-strong sensation on his skin and muscle, on each individual hair, it holds him up. How can this make him both pliant and powerful? How can love render him so weak and so strong at the same time?

Sherlock thinks it must be some special quality in John, that makes such contradictions possible. John has always made Sherlock's inherent contradictions somehow cohesive.

John pulls away to undress, which takes longer than Sherlock's disrobing because he is still wearing shoes, and underwear. Before long he stands revealed, though, the scar on his shoulder a companion to the many scars that Sherlock is now displaying. Lines and blotches. Patches of shiny skin on his chest from lighter burns. A puckered dent from a screwdriver stabbed into his thigh.

John runs his hands over the pale, scarred skin and too prominent ribs, noting yet again the loss of muscle mass as well as the map of hurts. Those injuries did not break Sherlock so John will not let them break him. But he wishes there was one of those bastards, just one, left that he could hurt for hurting this man. 

John’s palm strokes that beloved skin. He is overwhelmed with love for that precious body, the precious mind it contains, that precious, precious heart. Only Sherlock has ever made John feel whole; that the diverse and disconnected parts of doctor/soldier/killer/healer have any kind of continuity or use. Sherlock, John thinks, is alchemical, making something more noble out pf baser parts, and he loves him so much, he loves this man beyond all reason.

"John."

John raises his too bright eyes to meet Sherlock's.  There is so much to say and none of it is enough. Instead John stands taller, his hands braced on Sherlock’s shoulders, and next he has drawn Sherlock down into a kiss that started gentle but has become fierce, demanding. 

Momentum and gravity take them down onto the bed, and need and desire arrange them until Sherlock is straddling John’s hips. Again, it’s as though Sherlock is afraid that John will drift away. But John has always been the anchor. Sherlock didn’t know he was untethered until he met John, and he has felt nothing but adrift since that day on the rooftop.

John, his anchor, is content where he is, pinned down, holding on to and surrounded by Sherlock and it’s perfect. They are perfect.

They are touching at every point where it is possible to touch, hands and mouths and tongues against faces, shoulders, chests, nipples. They are belly to belly, erections sliding together with banked urgency. The pleasure they are giving and taking is exquisite, and though they both want to savour this and wonder at the newness, their nerve endings are singing at fever pitch.

The lube has indeed dried out from disuse at the nozzle. Impatiently, Sherlock tears the cap off and squeezes half the contents into his hand, onto John’s hard, hot erection, down between his legs. John spreads his knees wide and swipes a hand through the excess so that he can then slide his hand over Sherlock’s own thick, heavy cock.

“Do you want…?” Sherlock begins to ask, unsure of John’s experience in this arena.

“I want to feel you,” says John, arching up against Sherlock’s hand.

What Sherlock reads in that declaration, in that movement, decides him. He covers John’s fingers in more lube, then guides John’s hand between his own legs, spreads his own thighs as he shows John how to move, when to push, how deep, how hard. It’s good that John’s a doctor, because he knows the mechanics of this already. John is in no hurry, though. He teases, rubbing his fingers with small, circular movements before slipping them in slow progression, up into Sherlock's body, against his prostate.

John’s other hand is on Sherlock’s hip, and Sherlock’s hand is wrapped around John’s erection, and everything is moving so fast, every touch is electricity and heat. John groans and swears, then that laugh, that smile is back again.

“Remember… when I said… I was straight?”

Sherlock remembers, and remembers that he didn’t believe it then, either. “Bisexual,” he says, laughing and then gasping as he thrusts back against John’s fingers.

“Yep,” says John, “Only I thought… it would be… better for us …for our friendship... if you didn’t think… I fancied you. Oh _god_.”

“Idiot,” says Sherlock, rasping, fond.

“No argument… here.” John bucks up into Sherlock’s fist. “This, though. I never… with anyone else… got as far as… doing this...oh _fuck_ , Sherlock. **_Yes._** _Please. Please. Please_.”

Fired up to near-climax by the begging, moaning in anticipation, Sherlock moves John’s hand from between his legs, positions himself over John’s cock and pushes down. John cries out and cannot help thrusting up.

Those two bodies, that spent years in close orbit but almost never touching, and then two years adrift from one another, are slick with perspiration and pre-cum, burning with need and want. Where those bodies are joined is alive with pleasure almost too intense to bear. Sherlock’s spread inner thighs are pressed tight against John's hips; his hands are holding onto John’s ribs, sliding up over his chest and nipples, his shoulders (that scar), back down to John’s belly, up again, over his shoulders, down his arms.

And John’s hands are on Sherlock’s hips, his thumb stroking the skin where abdomen meets the crease of his leg, then rubbing along those long thighs, then one hand dips down to slide, slick and sure, over Sherlock’s erection, the other up to brush and gently squeeze Sherlock’s nipples. That hand then slides up to Sherlock’s face, cradles his jaw, his cheek, curves around his neck and draws him down for an open mouthed kiss.

“I want to see you,” he whimpers against that skin, “Please. Let me see…”

And Sherlock’s back is arching, his hips grinding down, breath hitching, but he is determined to keep his eyes on John’s, so those grey eyes and those blue eyes meet, and Sherlock is crying out and coming and _coming_ and then John’s feet are flat on the bed as he thrusts upward, and Sherlock bears down, still shaking in the final throes of his own orgasm.

“John, yes, John, let me, let me, I want, please…”

And John lets him see too as he cries out and arches and oh god, _comes_ into Sherlock's body, eyes open wide, a window to his soul that is bared and belongs, oh it belongs, it belongs to Sherlock; and Sherlock’s wide open eyes are falling into the blue, and his soul, if did not belong to John before, certainly belongs to him now.

Sherlock’s forehead drops down against John’s, and John’s hands are stroking Sherlock’s sides, firmly, so he doesn’t tickle, hands flat and strong and saying _mine_ because John’s too breathless to say it; and Sherlock is nuzzling John’s throat in wordless agreement, wordless counter-claim. _Mine. Mine. Mine._

Words continue to be unnecessary, replaced with kisses as they shift, curl together and doze, skin and minds humming with warmth and contentment.

Sherlock, never a deep sleeper, wakes a short time later to find John, though the shorter man, being the big spoon. He is wrapped around Sherlock, one hand almost gripping Sherlock’s wrist, as though afraid if he doesn’t hold on, Sherlock will  disappear. Sherlock should be irritated but he just feels safe. Tethered. Grounded. 

He breathes, slow and steady, until he feels John’s chest, pressed against his back, move as John wakes. He feels a kiss pressed to the base of his neck. Between his shoulder blades.

“John.”

“Hmm?”

Sherlock has always and forever been the one to ask the questions, even when inconvenient. Especially then.

“I’m wondering. What you want. From this.”

And John, forever the one to find the courage to answer those questions, says: “This. You. Whatever you want to give me. Everything you want to give me.” A thoughtful pause. “Actually, I want everything, absolutely everything. I hope you can see your way clear to that. Because everything I have is already yours. If that’s okay. Well, even if it isn’t. That’s how it is.”

“Good. I want everything, John. I want everything you have.”

John laughed. “No change there, then. Okay. Good. Yes. Everything. Everything I have and am is yours. Just like always.”

Sherlock wriggles around in John’s arms to face him. “Good." he decides to be more explicit because this is too important for John to miss the clues.  "And everything I have and am is yours. All of it. Even the terrible parts.”

“I sometimes like those parts the best,” says John, and kisses him.

The remainder of the lube is employed in languid frottage and making up for lost time over the next several hours.

This day is not over yet, however.

Showered and dressed, John has made the threatened soup and Sherlock has emptied two bowls of it, not to mention eating four of the scones they found left at the door. John is wondering how they’re going to get more lube when neither wants to leave the house long enough to shop, and they are certainly not going to ask Mrs Hudson to buy it. John thinks he might call Mike Stamford, who is most likely to bring things by, no questions asked, or maybe Greg, and he has to be told soon, that Sherlock is back; so yes, maybe Greg, who will hopefully find his role as sex-aid supplier to the reunited new couple horrifying and hilarious in equal measure, once he’s over the shock.

Sherlock, ever practical, is not worried, because he has seen a bottle of olive oil in the cupboard, noted the presence of conditioner in the shower and is curious about the potential for gun oil, a smell for which he has a certain sentimental attachment. There's John's hand lotion, too, which has similar associations of comfort and home.  Sherlock is getting hard again just remembering the scent.

It’s while Sherlock is eating a fifth scone (John is on his third) that the door opens and Mycroft Holmes makes his appearance.

It takes Mycroft less than five seconds to understand the changed nature of his brother’s relationship with John Watson. He disapproves of it within six.

Mycroft Holmes sees the world quite similarly to Sherlock, but the difference is crucial. While Sherlock's perception is selectively godlike, Mycroft is even closer to that ideal - or curse.  But where Mycroft is omniscient, he has also cultivated _omnipotence_.  He can see all those details, but with a sweeping scope, across time and geography, through social and political prisms.  The big picture he sees is very big indeed. He can extrapolate futures and consequences for nations.

And seeing so much, on such a large canvas, Mycroft has unfortunately given in to the temptation to _control,_ to guide and influence in ways both subtle and flagrant. Because he can, and because he is a genius too, the smarter brother; and because surely, seeing and knowing and predicting so much, _surely_ he knows what is best. For nations, for governments, for the people and certainly for his little brother.

It's the heart of his trouble with Sherlock, who has never and will not ever be guided by him. Mycroft hoped that this battlefield he has sought to direct over the last two years, pushing Sherlock to be where he was needed, would break the back of that particular problem. Of course, Sherlock thought that he was manipulating right back, but Sherlock overestimates his capacity in that regard. Still he pretends to be (and, annoyingly, often succeeds in being) independent of Mycroft’s carefully crafted gameplays.

It used to drive Mycroft to distraction that he could not influence the one part of his world that really mattered to him.  Sherlock simply would not be told. And then Mycroft found the fulcrum. Moriarty; and the threat Moriarty posed to Sherlock’s small world.

Unfortunately for Mycroft, it seems that Sherlock was less under his influence than he believed. Sherlock slipped away, back to Baker Street, back to John Watson, who should himself have been so simple to control, but who is possibly even worse than Sherlock.

The truth is, Sherlock was never really the one Sally Donovan should have worried about.  Sherlock wants to unravel all the puzzles, dissect them and understand them. It’s _Mycroft_ who wants to control the shape of the world. Mycroft is the one who might have been the criminal mastermind, if he was so inclined. In many ways he is, but that he likes to think of himself as a statesman. The power he wields, the deeds he has committed or caused to be committed, both benign and terrible, he has done for what he tells himself is the greater good: for nation, for state, for crown.

It is no end of vexation to him that at the centre of his own private world has always been one being that will not bend to his will. Well, he almost had him. Almost. Not any more.

Now, his brother is back in the orbit of Doctor Watson, who has proved as recalcitrant, as wayward, as Sherlock. And now, it seems, reunited, they are bound together, and more wayward than ever.

“Your evidence,” he says to John Watson, flinging a photograph on the table.

John glances at the image of the body, pushes the photograph towards Sherlock. “Not precisely the head on a pike I asked for.”

“You can come and view the body, if you like.”

Sherlock taps the photograph. “I think we all know that a body isn’t necessarily of itself evidence.”

Mycroft’s expression is sour enough to curdle non-organic substances.

John shrugs. “How about I take your word on it this time, and if Moran shows up at a later date, I’ll thrash your Machiavellian arse black and blue then?”

Sherlock, to Mycroft’s intense irritation, just smirks, clearly well pleased with John’s defiance.

With a sneer, Mycroft says: “I take Sherlock’s safety seriously, Doctor Watson. More seriously than either of you, it seems.”

“Wouldn’t count on it,” says John, eyes like ice, mouth in a flat, grim line. Sherlock’s expression is hostile but Mycroft Holmes is suddenly reminded of his first encounter with the doctor.

 _You don’t seem very frightened_ , Mycroft had said. _You don’t seem very frightening_ , Doctor Watson had replied.

Mycroft thought he knew everything there was to know about the doctor and his joint medical and military careers, but he suddenly sees that in seeing the big picture, he has missed something vital.

Doctor Watson is not easily frightened because, under the right (or wrong) circumstances, and for the right person, the doctor is the one who can be very dangerous indeed.

In an instant, Mycroft sees how the last two years might have played out if only he had not underestimated this irritating man. If he had sent John and Sherlock in to the field together.

Too late now, of course. To cover this disconcerting revelation, Mycroft takes refuge in baiting them.

“I shall take my leave, then. And be assured, when the happy day comes, I will of course provide a suitable gift.  A fish slice, perhaps?" his expression is clearly snide rather than congratulatory.

Sherlock scowls, but John takes his hand, and suddenly they are both relaxed and untouchable. (Mycroft, despite his genius, is not to know that they have already made their vows, in their bed, right before consummating them a second time.)

John replies: “That'd be great, cheers."  His smile is not a nice smile. It looks like it could slice titanium.  Not precisely dangerous, but far from friendly. "If you could gift wrap it though, I'd like that.  Something a bit special. I'm sure one of your staff could help.”

Mycroft has a sour look because he can't tell what's coming, except that it won't be good.

"Just get Anthea or someone to shove it up your arse. Maybe you can wrap a big red ribbon with a bow over your crack.  Just to finish it with a flourish.  Thanks."

“Crude, John,” says Sherlock, admiringly.

“Sorry,” says John, unrepenting.

Mycroft leaves without a word of proper farewell to or from the couple in the kitchen.

Sherlock and John exchange a look.

“Do you think Moran’s really dead?” John asks.

“I’d say there’s a 90 per cent chance of it.”

“The odds are that good, are they?” says John.

“Especially since he was already wounded. Almost certainly fatally.”

John nods. “The bloodstain on your coat.”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

Sherlock smiles.  He, of course, knows exactly how dangerous John Watson can be.  It is one of the very many things he loves about the man  whom he sees so clearly, and yet still finds so fascinating. John is still so unpredictable at times, so perfectly knowable and yet mysterious, still an unfinished narrative.  Sherlock intends to be by his side until the very end: until they finish that story together .

John is reading that forever promise in Sherlock, too, in the lift of his brow, the quirk of his mouth, the tick of his pulse and, though he couldn't tell you how, the way he reaches for a sixth scone.  There's permanence there, and openness.  Sherlock is not afraid to let John witness anything human in him now - hunger or exhaustion or need or passion.

"It will take a few days for the paperwork about my death to be corrected," says Sherlock, "Though Mycroft may make me wait longer, now."

"Since I told him to jam a fish slice up his behind? Sorry," though he doesn't sound it. "What's a fish slice anyway?"

"A spatula. So it's not as if we need one."

"I can think of a few things to do while we're waiting for you to be official again."

Sherlock matches John's meaningful look with one of his own, but is surprised when, instead of the expected invitation back to bed, John rises, goes to the living room and returns with Sherlock's violin. Not displeased, though. Their love for each other has been expressed in non-sexual ways until a mere eight hours ago. This is an intimacy they shared from the start, when Sherlock would play to soothe John's nightmares; when John was an audience for the things that Sherlock could not or would not (or did not know he was trying to) say.

Sherlock plays, and John listens, and they look at each other, with that intense regard that makes everyone else so uncomfortable, and they see each other, and hear each other, and love each other and they know, without a solitary doubt, that nothing and nobody will ever part them again.


End file.
